


Basil's Oxford Apocrypha

by Captain_Aesthetics



Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: Canon Compliant, Diary/Journal, Foreshadowing, M/M, Oxford, Pre-Canon, they're not quite who they are in the novel yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 15:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20260336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Aesthetics/pseuds/Captain_Aesthetics
Summary: Henry has taken to sampling the delights of the world. Basil gets to hear about them. This is partially welcome.





	Basil's Oxford Apocrypha

**Author's Note:**

> My friend requested Oxford!years fic. I immediately knew some clowning on Cambridge was necessary.

_ “The hour is so late it is early, the sun already peeking through the trees outside my window. I should be sleeping or, if I insist on wakefulness, be editing my term paper but I must get my thoughts down, to place them in ink and vellum so they no longer occupy my every waking thought. I might revisit them later, read them in lonely moments as a shadowed reminder, though I will as likely burn this entire volume and all its damning comments.”  _

[diary of Basil Hallward, October 1875]

Henry Wotton, who was not officially yet Lord but known by all to receive it soon, burst into the rooms of Basil Hallward and stopped just as suddenly. Basil moved his pencil away from his paper just in time before the jolt made him ruin his sketch. Henry looked around, confused moue on his lips. 

“I think I have stumbled upon the wrong rooms.” 

Basil smiled wearily and stood to take his coat. “Has it been so long?”

“Long enough they’re teaching barristers how to paint now. Far cry from the Socratic method.” He removed some papers from a chair, unbuttoned his coat, and sat with a flourish. 

Henry’s coat and hat secured on the rack by the door, Basil turned two glasses right-side up and poured some brandy. “I know it hasn’t been so long since the dinner where I told you I was considering giving all that up.”

“And father’s cheque still cleared?”

“It took some convincing but I told him I was primarily interested in portraiture. He considered the number of esteemed men and women I could have in my rooms for hours at a time and decided to let me stay.” 

“Yes well,” Henry looked around, his nose wrinkling. “Oh thank you,” he said as he accepted the brandy. “You did not have to change quite so dramatically. It’s positively bohemian in here.” 

The small Oxford lodging was stuffed with half-finished canvasses and charcoal studies, bought replicas, artfully strewn fabrics cast aside from still life displays, and the usual detritus of a hard-working artist. The glasses they were drinking from were the only ones in the room not lined with a layer of paint-water. 

“Food for the soul. And I’ve had some catching up to do, less time to clean.” He sat on his stool next to his easel and drank. “Besides you like it. It was you who took me to that underground place with all the candles and red lampshades.” 

“You’re right, just give me a moment to adjust. It was only a month or so ago you were ready to be fitted for a wig.” 

Basil shrugged. “My father thought I was interested in politics. How else to explain my preoccupation with indecency laws?”

“Caught with your head in a book?” Henry said, laughing. 

“For a time. I learned all I could. My trouble is that I cannot prop my eyes open long enough to finish a book if I cannot see the point of it. I read the vice codes voraciously and thought to translate that into a career, seeing as I already had a head start. But there is a great deal of supplemental reading and the ambition faded.” 

“Well bravo,” said Henry, lifting his glass, which Basil clinked with his own. “Though I have to say I am disappointed.” He took a big sip of brandy, his eyes dancing merrily above the rim. 

“Oh? Whyfor?”

“I had hoped you would go into the world and be scribe to the most draconian laws imaginable. So I might have the pleasure of breaking every single one.” 

Basil rolled his eyes as he laughed. “How tiresome. I think if I prescribed compulsory breakfast you would starve until noontime.” 

“Of course not, I love breakfast. Especially when it’s laid for two.” 

“Go on then, you’re clearly here for a reason.” 

“Not just your brandy,” he said, holding out his nearly empty glass. Basil topped him up. Henry sat back with satisfaction, getting comfortable. “I’m honestly shocked I didn’t wake you, seeing how late it is. I was out again tonight.” 

“Yes, I thought as much, judging by the hour.” 

“Good god what time is it?” Henry seemed to just now take in Basil’s dishabile. He was in simple breeches and an untucked loose shirt, not meant for company. The clothes of someone awoken with sudden inspiration. 

“Late enough. Go on.” 

“Happened to be at a pub frequented by the Cambridge rowing team. They’d just had a rather successful regatta and wished to celebrate. They didn’t appreciate an Oxford man there, except as an amusing target of their derision. But I proved a worthy opponent and they moved on as a group.” He took another sip and sighed. “It takes a special sort to be a crewman. Must not be too big, they cannot capsize the boat, and yet still strong. Slim, wiry types. Tousled hair and sunkissed skin from all that time on the Thames.” 

“Did you see one who struck your fancy?”

“Cherub of a boy, though he’s in his fourth year. A face to make me want to snatch him up and make him the cupbearer of Olympus. He’s stronger than I but I know the type, desperate for someone to overpower them. He put up the typical resistance for a while.” Henry sighed, rubbing his brow. “I know the role by heart, I’m as veteran as Bernhardt at Lady MacBeth.” 

Basil smiled thinly. “Shall I applaud you as if you are on the stage?”

“The applause is part of the appeal. I am seeking variety and yet here I am with an endless stream of college boys talking rough with eyes begging me to bugger them.” 

“Did you?”

“What?”

Basil gestured. 

“Oh! No time, I barely got my hand in his breeches before his friends were calling him along. It was the eyes in the end. To see his protestations turn to nothing, all his strength useless when I had his back to the brick wall. He was begging for a kiss by the end. I had to oblige.” 

“A fondle and a kiss had you barging into my rooms past midnight?”

“What’s wrong with you, you usually like my stories.”

“There have been so many as of late, they begin to blend together.”

“This was out of doors, where anyone might have stumbled upon us.” 

“And yet they didn’t. It sounds dangerous but isn’t truly. More risky by far is- well nevermind.”

“No,” said Henry, leaning forward, attentive now. “Tell me, what would be the utmost risk?”

“If I tell you you’ll run right out and do it.” 

Henry shrugged. “Maybe. If it inspires.” 

Basil sighed deeply and looked to his glass of brandy. He swallowed a great amount and looked to the heavens before looking back to Henry, their eyes meeting as two wrestlers might look across a ring. “True pleasure for hours, trying to stay quiet for the neighbors but failing in the end and hoping they can’t differentiate the male voices. To be so swept away you damn the consequences.” 

“I think you’ve given this some thought,” said Henry, his head cocked, looking at Basil differently now. 

“I’ve considered it.” 

Henry glanced to the bed. The sheets were rumpled but it was mostly free of clutter. “Tell me. Do you make noise when you make yourself come, or do you wish for someone to force it out of you.”

“Harry, really!” 

“I tell you all sorts of things, you could return the favor.” 

“You volunteer, I don’t ask.”

“But you like to know.” Henry leaned forward in his chair. “You have a great curiosity for vice, you gave me the idea yourself. I just got out and test it for you.” 

“I… I what?” Basil said, his cheeks turning scarlet.

“Oh you know.”

In a moment of boldness some months previous, when they’d been drinking and Basil had been less drunk than he’d let on, he grabbed Henry by the chin and kissed him. “Not so terrible as they let on,” he’d said. Henry had looked stunned and said nothing. Basil went on to pretend that it never happened and he’d thought the whole incident had been forgotten by Henry.

“And you think,” said Basil now. “That is the cause of you going out and presenting your services to every lithe looking schoolboy in Oxbridge?” 

“I know it. Quenching the fire of that kiss you refuse to acknowledge.” 

“Oh, that you haven’t kissed me is my own fault too?”

“Maybe. Answer my question.” His hands gripped the arms of his chair, as if ready to spring. 

Basil looked at this hands and then at Henry’s face. “I’m utterly silent, every time.” 

“We’ll see about that.” 

He pounced. Basil stood at once and they collided in the middle, arms tangling as each reached for the other. Lips met briefly, it was a kiss of tongues and breath. Henry clutched Basil’s face toward him, bearing down on him, so Basil was a maiden in his arms who could only clutch at him as he was kissed soundly. 

“A moment, please,” he begged when he could catch his breath. He pulled away and went to lock the door. On his way back he divested himself of his shirt while Henry started at the buttons of his waistcoat. Basil reached out to help but Henry told him “you should bare yourself and get into bed.” 

Basil did so, arranging himself as artfully as he could. Henry pulled loose his tie and his shirt soon followed, joining vest and jacket on the floor. Only trousers remained, which he started on as he approached the bed. Basil pulled his legs tighter to his chest. Henry undid the final buttons on his trousers and pushed them away. A hand on Basil’s knee pushed them apart. Not pushed, as at a single touch they fell open.

“So. Artist. What sort of things have you imagined?”

  
  


_ Even now my hands tremble, I can see it clearly in the morning light. I cannot drink my tea for it will spill. I stay sequestered at my desk, the bed still smells of him though he is long gone. He could not be seen leaving my rooms in evening clothes and yet I wish he had remained a little longer, to quell the shaking. I hope he will return.  _

_ Plato once spoke of two halves who used to be one and how we tried. ‘Like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air.’ The shock was quickly overcome. I cannot write for blushing but I must. I must purge this from me if I mean to go on in polite society. I put my vices into paper and stride the world a man of honor, unknown to all but those closest to me. _

_ I was so sure in his arms that I let him do any manner of things and ask things of me I bowed to do with haste. Every sigh I elicited was a private victory for me. I had my theories, now here was the proof. Doubt shedded with every scrap of clothing. _

<strike> _ I took him in my mouth and let him bugger me until I clapped a hand across my mouth. _ </strike> _ I cannot write plainly, it sounds like a confession and I do not find myself ashamed. I shall have to face the world with this new knowledge and find a way to keep it hidden. In the absence of He- him I think of my art. This will either make me the artist of an age or ruin me, that I must draw a veil across my eyes to hide what is truly seen.  _

_ Would that I awoke with my head on the sun-warmed skin of my dear friend. That we allowed a maid to bring in breakfast and we ate at our leisure. Went for a stroll hand in hand before parting only for lecture. _

_ What will likely happen is I will not see him again until he comes bursting into my room with tales of another conquest. To make me jealous of course, that is why he did it this time. It will work and I will crash into him yet again and he will leave before the sun rises, again. I will wait and it will have to be enough.  _

_ I know him. If I ask for consistency he will bristle and be driven from me forever. But if I say out loud it is fine, even preferred, that he continue to seduce every boy who strikes his fancy he will tip his hat with a hearty thanks. He is not a contrarian, he is preoccupied with pleasure. As of now I give him pleasure and I am satisfied. _

_ I am preoccupied with beauty and there are many places to look. Not just the length of his fingers or the curve of his-  _

[Excerpt from the recovered files of the reclusive artist. As evidenced by charring around the edges, he did attempt to destroy the document but the papers were retrieved, either by himself or another hand. No other extant pages remain to our knowledge. -collectors note, 2019]


End file.
